Apple Brandy Barrel Aged Barleywine by pFriem Family Brewers

Caramel apple, vanilla, and quince. Sweet, but with enough booze and tannin to cut it back to easy drinking. Thick and smooth all the way down. 4.5/5 stars.

We made it back down off the mountain, and now it was time to refuel our bodies. If Solera Brewing isn’t your first choice in the Mt. Hood area, it’s not too much further to the Columbia River gorge and the beer Mecca of Hood River. There are several beery options, but when it’s isn’t too terribly busy (which it usually is) I like to stop at pFriem. No, that isn’t a misspelling, or improper use of capitalization. The “P” is silent, so the Pfriem family opted to make the pronunciation apparent to us rubes. As someone with a frequently mispronounced last name, I can understand why they chose to do it that way. Trust your eyes, and say it with me. “Freem!” Very good.

The brewpub is very nice. The aesthetic is unapologetically outdoorsy-industrial-modern-log cabin. Most brewpubs in Oregon use the same design manual, leaning more outdoorsy the further away you get from Portland. The food and service were excellent. We were quoted thirty minutes to wait for a table, which was less than ten in actuality. Beers were already in hand, since they offer pours from their “to-go” room for those not seated in the restaurant. Food arrived quickly and was superbly presented. I had the pimento cheese burger with a side salad, and both were delicious. The pimento cheese oozed off the thick and juicy burger, barely held together by the ciabatta bun. Bread and butter pickles cut through the fat (and so did the Czech lager I was still finishing). The salad was simple but complemented the burger well. A nice thousand island-type dressing over fresh mixed baby greens. Then it was on to dessert.

Despite the sun and warmth we had up on the mountain, down in the Gorge it was cloudy and cool. I had lost all of the residual body heat from the hike by the time we reached the restaurant, so something warming was in order. I chose the Apple Brandy Barrel Aged Barleywine to finish my meal. It was just the sweet, cozy drink I needed to warm up. Gooey apple wrapped in smooth caramel, vanilla and oaky tannins from the barrel to round out and dry up the dessert flavors. Yum! All-in-all, it was the perfect ending to an excellent adventure.